[WeightWatchyshow]

I think the passage in question is problematic; we see the advice proceed thusly:

1. Do not see women
2. Do not talk to women
3. Be wide awake

But those first two ideas contradict the last: just avoid, just avoid - a popular brahmanical approach, but in the struggle against unwholesome thoughts the Buddha says that ignoring them is only one method among five (MN 20), and certainly not the first one to try. The progression there goes as follows:

A. Attend to a different, wholesome theme.
B. Scrutinize the drawbacks of the unwholesome.
C. Pay no attention.
D. Relax the thought-fabrication.
E. Crush mind with mind.

1 and 2, above, are C, while 3 is a mix of A/B. Now, in the Bharadvaja Sutta we find King Udena talking with the Ven. Pindola Bharadvaja on this very subject. There, three solutions are also proferred:

1. See women as ones mother/sisters/daughters, according to age.
2. Body foulness meditation.
3. Guard sense faculties.

1 evokes metta, which matches A. 2 evokes the recognition of drawbacks, which is B. And, 3 matches both, which is why the King is satisfied with this response and not those first two. So in this case too the final solution is best, but in this Sutta "pay no attention" isn't even brought up. In Ananda's case that is the first go-to method, and it's even repeated.

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There are asavas to be abandoned by avoiding, per MN 2, but women are not singled out. I conclude that the Digha Nikaya advice is anemic and probably late; there are much better pieces of advice in the Suttas on this topic, ones such as those above which are much more in accord with the gradual training and knowledge & vision than the seemingly brahmanical preference for ritual avoidance.

imo